The Trump administration wants to make the government more efficient. It even established something called the Department of Government Efficiency. But that executive order for everyone to return to the office could work against efficiency. Retired public administration professor Bob Tobias had more to say on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin Tell us, why would having everyone come back to the office maybe work against the DOGE goals?
Bob Tobias The president signed a new executive order directing all federal employees to return to work five days a week. I believe that’s wrongheaded if indeed the goal is to increase federal employee productivity. There’s been a long history, Tom, a long, long history that started as far back as 1978 with exploring alternative work schedules. And the Government Accountability Office found that these alternative work schedules increased employee productivity. And then in 2010, Congress gave the federal government the idea to do telework. And again, telework has proven to increase employee productivity. And I think the reason for that is that employees have the opportunity to flex their schedules, to work at a time when they can contribute maximally to their work. They don’t have to be at a certain period of time or a certain place to do their work. But the evidence is clear People produce more when they have the flexibility to work at home or to work in the office. So a blanket directive by the President, I believe, based on the data, is counterproductive. And the President has also said that, well, the private sector, the private sector. But the fact of the matter is there are fewer federal employees who are in remote work than in the private sector. And the Congressional Budget Office recently said that federal workers return to in-person work more quickly than their counterparts in the private sector. So compared to the private sector in terms of numbers, compared to the private sector in terms of productivity, the current program works. So removing that, revoking that is counterproductive to the DOGE goal of increasing efficiency and effectiveness in the federal sector.
Tom Temin Now, the executive order most recently did say this shall be carried out in accordance or words to the effect that shall be implemented consistent with applicable law, which includes the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010. That hasn’t been repealed so far as we know. So therefore there is telework built into the system statutorily at this point.
Bob Tobias It is built into the statute, Tom. But the President is saying that agencies may not exercise their discretion to use that statute. That’s the essence of the executive order. Presidents saying, no, you can’t do telework any longer. Everybody has to come back to work five days a week.
Tom Temin And just to clarify, the original alternative work schedule going back to the 70s, that’s when people, everyone has to put in their 40 hours, but they could do it over the course of four days instead of five days. I think you got four ten hour days and one day not working a typical workweek day, correct?
Bob Tobias That is correct. So the idea is you have core hours that you must be present and you can flex one way or the other and you can create four ten hour workweeks. So that flexibility still exists. But at the same time, the President can say agencies or agency heads are no longer able to exercise their authority to grant these alternative work schedules. The President is imposing on sort of a uniform policy on 2.2 million federal employees, 2000 agencies and 15 cabinet level departments.
Tom Temin We’re speaking with Bob Tobias, distinguished practitioner in Residence Emeritus at American University. I guess the only way to tell if this is taking effect is to ride the Metro downtown. I may try that one morning to see if this really seems crowded. It’s been creeping back up. And you’ve also been looking at the executive order on Schedule F that was signed again the first day already posted at WhiteHouse.gov by Tuesday, the first full day of the administration. And you noticed some differences between the last executive order on Schedule F and this time around.
Bob Tobias Yes, the new executive order amended the prior executive order and I found three things that were significantly different. One, the old order said that the [Office of Personnel Management] director would decide who is and who is not covered by Schedule F. Now it’s the President. The President decides who will be covered and who will not. I can’t imagine a President of the United States sitting and checking off who’s going to be in and who’s going to be out. But that’s what the executive order says. It also gives the OPM director the authority and responsibility to recommend to the President anyone, any job classification, for any reason to be to be covered under Schedule F, which means you may be discharged at will. So I found also some new language that says that people who are covered by this Schedule F are not required to personally or politically support the current President or the policies of the current administration. However, anyone who is in this Schedule F may be discharged for any reason or no reason at all. So this language in the executive order is really meaningless. It’s there, but it’s meaningless because I can discharge you for any reason or no reason at all. And I think the real thrust of both Schedule F and working at home is that real uncertainty is created in the workplace. And that’s not good for the public. Because if I’m uncertain about my future, I’m not working in the present to the maximum, to my maximum ability. If I’m uncertain about my future, I’m going to start looking. And the best employees will leave and the best applicants won’t come to the federal government. So I think these policies are directly opposite to increasing efficiency and effectiveness of government service.
Tom Temin And of course, that’s moot at the moment simply because there’s a federal hiring freeze imposed, which I think pretty much every administration does, doesn’t it, on its first day?
Bob Tobias Well, I don’t think every every President does a hiring freeze, but I think it’s particularly problematic right now. Any hiring freeze that goes across the federal government ignores the needs, for example, of the Social Security Administration to hire people to man the phones and answer questions. It ignores the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to hire people necessary to answer the phones and provide answers to the public. So across the government, there are agencies who are serving the public and are authorized to hire more employees who will now not be able to do it because of this across the board hiring freeze. So, again, it creates uncertainty and I think it’s to the disadvantage of the public at large.
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